


Beach

by dreamofalamprey



Series: John and Pip [3]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: AU - Graduate Students, Day At The Beach, Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, Love, M/M, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-07-01 19:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15780249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamofalamprey/pseuds/dreamofalamprey
Summary: Request: "Them all three going to the beach and Alex and John acting like a married couple :)"Lams + John and Pip Fluff





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first request and it was taking me a long time because I was trying to write the whole thing but ultimately decided it would be better to publish in chapters... I hope that you like it (more is on the way!) and always feel free to leave requests and prompts if you have any 
> 
> love always !!

A couple of months ago, a six-hour road trip down to Montauk with a five-year-old would have sounded like torture to John, but two long legal classes, four papers, and many happy days with both Hamiltons had definitely changed that. Even as he listened to Alex curse out the GPS, he couldn’t help but crack a grin from his place in the passenger seat.  

“We haven’t even been in the car for half an hour,” he teased, “and we’re gonna be on the freeway for the next two-hundred miles. Just drive.”

“I like to know where I’m going, John,” snapped Alex, though not seriously. 

“Read the signs!”

“The signs mean nothing! I don’t know the roads!”

“Oh, my God-”

John’s light-hearted exasperation was interrupted by the robotic voice of the navigation app on Alex’s phone. 

“In four-hundred feet, change lanes and continue South down Highway 87.”

“Four-hundred feet? What? No-”

He reached out and grabbed the phone from where it sat in the cupholder, switching the app off. 

“You know what, I’m gonna be your directions from now on,” he said, pulling up maps and confirming the simplest route mentally, “and I say that you’re just gonna keep going like you are now until I say otherwise, capiche?”

“Fine,” grumbled Alex, “but you’d better not get us lost, Laurens, or I swear-”

“Yeah, yeah,” said John, waving off his boyfriend’s concern with a swat of the hand. 

He turned so that he was facing the backseat, where Philip sat in a booster by the window, looking back at him shyly. John smiled. 

“How’re you doing, Pip?” he asked, “excited?”

That was a stupid question. He knew that Philip had been talking non-stop about going to the beach since the idea was first brought up a couple of weeks ago. 

Philip nodded his head eagerly, smiling his sweet little-kid smile. 

“I take it you’ve been to the ocean before, huh?”

“Yeah,” said Philip, starting to bounce up and down a little bit out of anticipation, though the beach was still hours away, “we went last summer and we went swimming and we got to eat lunch on the beach!”

Out of the corner of his eye, John could see Alex smile. He always got excited when his son got animated about something. John could hardly blame him. 

“Lunch on the beach?” John asked, making a face of mock-surprise, “ah, that sounds pretty cool. Maybe we could do it again this time, so you can show me, hm?”

“Yeah!”

He and Alex both chuckled at the sincerity in Philip’s voice. Though his back had begin to ache from the way he was turned around to look into the backseat, John stayed put for the better part of the next hour, listening avidly to a story Philip was telling about whales. A little discomfort was a small price to pay for a happy kid and a relaxed boyfriend. 

When Philip ran out of things to say and John ran out of questions to goad him with, Alex decided to swoop with the suggestion that they listen to music for a while. Really, he was trying to provide John with the opportunity to re-position to find a playlist, which did not go unappreciated. 

They were quiet for the first couple of songs, Alex insisting that they just “look out the window and listen to the words.” John caught him glancing up into the rearview mirror every now and again, hoping to lull Philip to sleep. (They’d gotten up early to beat the traffic, and John knew that the kid wore out easily.) It worked, and halfway through the list, Philip had his face pressed against his seatbelt and his eyes closed. 

Alex looked up into the mirror once more and smiled. 

“Thanks for being so chill about this,” he said to John after a few minutes, gesturing vaguely as though the hoops of traveling with a kid were visible to the eye. 

John shrugged this off.

“Yeah, ‘course.”

“I’m serious,” said Alex, glancing over to him in the passenger seat, “no one has ever been this… like, _cool_ about the whole ‘kid’ thing.” 

John was quiet. The tone had certainly shifted dramatically in a very short period of time. 

“I know that I’m hardly _father-of-the-year_ ,” Alex continued, “but… oh, I don’t know, things have just been different since Eliza left, you know? People are okay at first, but then they always end of bailing when they realize that Philip’s always gonna be a part of the deal. And I just- I know I mess up a lot and there’s still issues and whatever but I’m just glad that I have you, okay? And Pip, I mean, he loves you. And that’s… I dunno, but that’s something.”

He trailed off, seemingly becoming embarrassed at this spontaneous burst of emotion. Perhaps he interpreted John’s speechlessness as discomfort. Much to the contrary, John was feeling flattered almost beyond words. They came only after a couple seconds of silence.

“Alex, you know how much that kid means to me. And he’s not just ‘part of the deal,’ like… that’s my kid too-”

He looked out the window as he spoke. It was easier to say stuff like this when he wasn’t looking at Alex. He spoke like he was talking to the passing trees, or narrating a movie about someone else’s life. 

“-and I love him like I love you, you know?”

He caught himself and stammered, causing Alex to break out into laughter. 

“Okay, shit, well, not _exactly_ like I love you,” he said, “but you know what I mean. I love both of you.”

Alex turned to look at him. Before John could even overthink anything, Alex was smiling at him. 

“We love you too,” he said, “I love you.”

John smiled, looking down at his knees, feeling like some schoolboy even at the age of twenty-five. He found that when he was with Alexander, he didn’t really mind. 


	2. Chapter 2

It was two and a half hours later before Philip woke up and Alexander pulled off the main road to stop at a little gas station. John unclicked his seatbelt as soon as they were stopped. He'd had to pee for the last hour, but Alex had been adamant about  _timing,_ acting like he had some vitally important schedule. Really, John knew he was just trying to coordinate his bathroom breaks with Philip's. 

He had been a bit uncomfortable, but hadn't really minded. It was Alex, afterall. 

"Why'd we stop?" asked Philip semi-groggily from the back seat. 

"We're getting gas," said Alexander, looking back at him, "and John needs to go potty," he said, poking his boyfriend in the stomach playfully, "why don't you go in with him?"

"Mkay."

Snorting, John stepped out of the car and opened Philip's door. Pip's little fingers still fumbled with the seatbelt, and it was much faster if John just did it. 

"Let's go," he said, offering his hand for the kid as he hopped out of the car. 

He swung on John's arm all the way through the gas station, only letting go when they got to the sketchy bathroom in the back. When they were finished, John needed to lift Philip up so he could reach the sink. 

"Do you want to get something for the road?" he asked when they stepped out into the store, gesturing to the refrigerated aisle next to them. 

Philip nodded eagerly, dragging him down passed the doors. He knelt down and examined the different flavors of lemonade, a intent look upon his face. Ultimately, he decided on the chilly, pink one that probably contained sixty different kinds of red dye, but John let it slide. He picked out a Diet Coke for himself and a cold bottled coffee for Alex. It was one of those fake, sugary drinks that he knew he’d make some smart comment about, but it was caffeine and it was _delicious, damn it._

On his way up to the register, he swiped something on the snack wrack for Philip. Partially as a reward for being so good while they drove, and partially as a bribe to keep things that way. And partially because John always liked to make the kid smile.

He handed Philip his drink as soon as it was scanned, grabbing the rest himself. On the way out, he bumped the kid's shoulder. 

“I got you a present,” said John, grabbing the roll of miniature donuts he’d bought and handing them to the boy.

Philip took them and looked at them with a look of pure delight on his face.

"Donuts?"

"But you gotta share," John added teasingly, earning an eager nod from Philip as they returned to the car. 

"Look what John got me!" Philip proclaimed gleefully as he climbed back in the car, waving the roll around excitedly. 

Alex raised his eyebrows. 

"What?" he said, feigning surprise, "oh, my god! John got you  _donuts?!"_

"Yeah!" 

"Did you say thank you?" he asked, buckling Philip's seatbelt. 

Philip craned his head to meet John's eye in the front seat. 

"Thank you!"

"Yeah," muttered Alex as he turned around and started the car, "sugar. Thanks a lot."

It was one of the rare times he couldn't  _quite_ pull off the sarcasm. 

John grinned. 

"Any time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know my chapters are irregular in length and frequency, but i hope u enjoy -- if you do, let me know - I tend to go faster / write more if i know I have an audience!!!
> 
> lots of love from meeeeeee <3


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